Lix Hewett

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Welcome to November: Goals & Musings

posted on November 4, 2014

Welcome to November - Photography & Design by Lix Hewett

First things first, I have — or rather, Rafflecopter has — drawn a winner for my media kit giveaway, and the lucky lady is Crystal from The Happy Type! As a longtime reader of her blog, I could not be more excited to work with her.

I recapped October on Sunday, and you’re welcome to have a read of how that went. It wasn’t great, but it didn’t end too badly. Now, this November thing. November means:

  • It’s my birthday. This Saturday, actually. Expect a birthday wishlist on Wednesday and probably a Twitter meltdown on Saturday, let’s be real, I suck at keeping it together on my birthday. I have zero plans at the moment and don’t foresee making any, which I have mixed feelings about. I haven’t celebrated my birthday in years but I feel like I should do something special. I’m going to be leaving my early twenties behind, after all. That’s kind of… horrifying, a little bit. Not really. I don’t even know if I’m capable of bastardizing Taylor Swift’s 22 for twenty-five. Twenty-five. Holy shit. Moving on…
     
  • It’s been six months since I moved country. I already blogged about this, but the thought keeps popping into my head at random intervals. Shouldn’t I have it together by now? Obviously that’s a really toxic thing to think, and I’m constantly torn between wanting to do better really badly, and freaking out that if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s never going to. But I’m also trying to think about what works and what doesn’t in terms of self-care, because I’ve had six months to pick up and drop habits, good and bad, and flying by the seat of my pants is clearly not an approach that works, so I need to take a good look at myself and my choices and make better ones in the aspects of my life that I have control over. Because I do have some control over some aspects of my life, like what I eat and what I do with my time and whether I consume enough entertainment to keep myself from combusting in a cloud of work-related overwhelm.
     
    One thing I’ve noticed recently is I spent so many years avoiding music because it was hard for me to focus on fiction writing with it playing that I forgot to bring my iPod to London with me, and I haven’t necessarily missed it — I would have had to bring my speakers along as well — but I’ve missed music. I interact with it differently now that the bulk of my work doesn’t involve words, and the work that does involve words doesn’t rely on cadence and pacing — not the way fiction does, anyway. iTunes is right there, and when I do listen to music, it lifts me up. There are very few things that have that effect on me, and none that have it so quickly and unobtrusively, so I need to use that knowledge. Gymnastics is also good for me, and it’s something that I can easily watch while I eat. It’s not quite the TV show I wanted to pick up — just one! I can’t choose! — but it’s a start.
     
  • It’s NaNoWriMo. It’s also NaBloPoMo, which I’m actually doing, or attempting to — this post was supposed to go up yesterday. But there’s something incredibly comforting and motivating about a whole lot of people doing the exact same thing at the same time, and I’ve actually been writing on a notebook every day since November 1. I don’t know if it’s really helping yet, but it’s got potential. It’s helped before. It’s all about taking a moment — ten, twenty minutes — before I dive into the Internet to assess my situation and talk out my concerns and keep track of, like I said above, what’s working and what isn’t.
     
    I’ve also found myself, since I started journaling, thinking about blog posts as stories — or thinking of stories as potential blog posts. All these little tidbits of my life I didn’t know how to talk about, how to share, are taking shape in my head, and it’s weird because this kind of thing usually happens when I see somebody else do what I want to do and do it well, but it’s happening spontaneously.
     
  • It’s getting dark really early, and I need daylight to stay sane. Apparently. Or something. What’s tripping me up, besides the fact that I’m still dragging a 5 AM to 5 PM sleep schedule and I generally wake up with my anxiety beating down on my motivation, is I’ve got used to and found comfort in going to Starbucks right after I get up — at 5 PM — and staying there till closing, while it’s dark outside, and I could potentially still do this — work at home and come to Starbucks in the evening — but in order to do that, I need to be able to turn the heating on in the morning, and there’s a minor issue there that requires me to talk to my landlady and like, assert myself and I suck at this so much that I’m very much considering spending daylight time at Starbucks and going back home around 6 PM when she’s back and turns the heating on. But I shouldn’t be spending so much time (read: money) at Starbucks anyway. Dilemma!
     

    • So that’s where I’m at as November begins. I think my main goal for the week is to work on time management. Again. Two weeks ago I didn’t have any way to make money, and right now I’ve got a few ways but I keep getting bogged down in thinking that I have so much to do and not enough time to do it, which is a lie because I really waste a ton of it. Focusing is hard, but it’s not impossible, and for the first time in a while I feel mildly capable of blocking time and taking breaks and just being tidier about it all. Music and NaNoWriMo are here to help me along! So I’m going to try.

    Linking up with Weekly Wishes as always! Here’s to a great birthday month. I especially can’t wait for my blog redesign to come together! It’s out of my hands at the moment, though, so I get to focus on work — writing, design — and my photography backlog. So many pictures to edit and share!

    What are your plans for November?

    • I remember when I used to do NaBloPoMo each year, it was so fun! Now that I blog M-F I think it’d be easy for me to do again this year.

      • I’ve never done it before, but I’ve done NaNoWriMo and I wanted a taste of it this year even if I don’t have time to dig into a novel.

    • I hate the darkness too! I get up at 5 AM and it is dark, I come home at 6 PM and its dark – hate it!

      • I kind of wish that was it for me because I work from home, so I actually have plenty of daylight available to me… if 5 AM to 5 PM wasn’t the hours I spend SLEEPING. /o

    • Karissa Ancell

      It was just my birthday, I turned 30. Enjoy your birthday.

      • Happy (belated) birthday, and thank you!

    • Kendall Rayburn

      YAY! It’s gonna be your bday soon. Enjoy. I have endless to-do list especially Christmas is coming!

      • Thanks! I think I’m going to put together some printables to aid people with their Christmas to-dos. Any requests?

    • The time change has thrown me for a bit of a loop, too! It’s so weird that it starts getting dark around 6. I feel like it is way later and so I get tired earlier. And then I have been waking up too early! Hopefully we will both adjust soon. Have a very happy birthday!

      • I wouldn’t mind waking up too early – my sleep schedule is just absolutely shot, and I keep finding myself still awake at 6 AM when it’s getting light outside, and waking up at 4 PM when it’s getting dark. And then I feel horrible about it even though I worked so hard to stop feeling guilty (because it doesn’t help matters when I’ve got shit to do no matter how late I wake up).

    • I hate that it gets dark early a lot of the time, but sometimes I like it. Happy birthday!

      • I actually like dark evenings/afternoons in my new room but I need those daylight hours and my sleep schedule is so shot that I keep sleeping through them.

    • In november, I’m trying to enjoy the last bits of Fall before winter kicks in. Celebrating Thanksgiving, Black Friday shopping traditions…all exciting!

    • Great goals! Happy birthday!! November for me is going to be relaxing – like… no plans at all because october was crazy and december will be even worse!

      • thank you! Enjoy your no-plans November, that sounds excellent. :)

    • Happy early birthday! I don’t feel like 6 months is too long to still get stuff together. I mean unpacking is easy but making a life in a new spot is not as easy. :)

      • Yeah, I mean, I’ve only been settled for two months, really, and obviously my anxiety and depression weren’t going to magically go away when I moved country. I wasn’t suddenly going to be able to get up early and go to bed early and put myself on a normal schedule. It’s a lot of work and my motivation issues get in the way. But I’m trying and it’s getting better, I *think*, and that’s what counts, right?

    • Happy early birthday! I’m trying to relax my schedule this month, but that doesn’t seem to be going well at all so far. So really, I guess I’m just going to try to stay sane through all the holidays over the next couple of months! ;)

      • Thank you! God, I wish I could relax my schedule. That’s why I want to have a schedule, so I can take breaks and occasionally do less. But I need all the money I can get so I can’t turn down any work, plus my backlog, plus the redesign and getting a portfolio… it’s a lot. I just want to be better at time management. I’m trying to use my birthday/start of a new year in my life as a motivator.

    • Lix!! 25 isn’t old!!! Same age as my boyfriend ;) Huge Happy birthday to you and we’ll make sure we book in that coffee soon! I ran away to Morocco to escape the darkness! At least it’s a little warmer here!

      Katie <3

      • Thank you! Yes, let’s! And I don’t think I’m OLD or anything, it’s just that turning point where I’m no longer in my early twenties. It’s straaaange.

    • Happy early birthday, woowooooo!

    • Erica

      Happy Early birthday and yes 25 is not old! I’ve got five years on you, now that’s old, haha! :)

      • thank you! I think the 25 thing is just that, I’m no longer a young adult, really, am I? It’s weird.

    • Kristine Foley

      What?! Girl make plans and go wild! You deserve it! Only once a year :)

      • I don’t have any friends here or money! So I didn’t make any plans but I did get a super big Starbucks drink with my earned drink? lol

    • Sharon Gilman

      25 is not as bad as it sounds ;) But I understand the anxiety. For me I think it’s stemmed from not having my ish together as soon as everyone else around me seemed to have. But no worries! You live your life the way you want! :D

      • I’m not too torn up about it, it’s just. Shit. I’ve left my early twenties behind. I’m a proper Adult now. I think it’s exactly that for me, except I don’t get to live my life the way I want, I just get to live it the way I *can*, and that’s just such a stressor for me. But, baby steps, I guess.

    • I had anxiety about turning 30 but I’m over it now. Happy birthday. I know what you mean about the daylight. I am a night owl, but I love long days and evenings.

      • Thank you! Ah, me too. I’ve found myself enjoying evenings/nights here, maybe because my room feels weirdly cold during daylight, whereas my room at home in Spain was just so much nicer when there was natural light coming in. But I can’t keep sleeping through the daylight hours.

    • Happy birthday!! And daylight savings is KILLING me. Im not a fan.

      • Thank you! I’d normally like the earlier sunrise but it’s so so bad with my sleep schedule the way it is. Even when I get up relatively early for me, it’s dark as soon as I’m out of the shower. I need daylight to take pics and do vlogs! Sigh.

    • Hope you have a great birthday month! Happy early birthday. I don’t think anyone really has it together at any age.. I used to stress out SO MUCH about it, and I feel like the older I get I just come to terms with it that it’s okay not to have it together.. haha maybe “having it together” is really having peace about allowing life to just be messy. *shrug* Hmm strange. I just externally processed all this right now.

      • Thank you! Yeah, it’s been an interesting road to here. When I dropped out of college, I enrolled in two years at once the following year because I hated the idea of losing a year so, so much. Then I was a hermit for about four years, doing absolutely nothing with my life, and I think I only came to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to have the straight school-uni-work life I (thought I) wanted when the time I would have graduated passed.

        • Yeah it can be a tough and lonely road doing life in a not so ordinary fashion.. but I think ultimately once you find your way, you will be glad you did things the way you did. :) I definitely have tendencies of going in and out of hermit mode.. and that’s what last year in LA was for me. I realized I wasted a whole year hating on the people of LA.. and I’m trying my best going forward not to treat any of the other cities I live in like that.

    • Happy birthday month! I totally hear you on the daylight savings thing. Once it’s 5pm I feel like I’m about to pass out. Then I glance at the clock a few hours later thinking it’s probably 10 or 11 and it’s only 8 or 9. AH!

      • Thank you! I remember that feeling from when my sleep schedule wasn’t completely shot. Now I’ll just wake up and it’s getting dark outside and I feel awful because I slept through the daylight hours again. I need to get on a normal damn sleep schedule. Or just closer to normal. Noon! What I wouldn’t give to be getting up at noon regularly again. I remember when I thought *that* was bad…

    • I hope your birthday goes better than expected tomorrow!

      • Thank you! It did, I think. I wasn’t a complete wreck the whole time so definitely an improvement on birthdays past.

    • thank you!

    • Thank you! I always want to get things done quicker than everyone else, it’s awful. I dropped out of uni my first year and the second year I tried, I actually enrolled in two years at once because I hated the thought of losing one so much. Then of course I couldn’t afford tuition so I dropped out again and spent four years doing nothing – though that’s a lie, I don’t feel like I lost those years, I feel like I learned so much about myself and writing and design and all kinds of things that would eventually come in handy.

      It’s just so damn stressful not having it together when you’re living sale to sale. I just want a financial cushion so I can stop freaking out about everything all the time and focus on work. But baby steps, I guess!

      thank you. <3